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Author Topic: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?  (Read 6572 times)

Dinarius

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2018, 12:03:18 pm »

Bart,

Thanks again.

RRS not easily available this side of the pond. Purchase and servicing of Manfrotto much easier.

Will see if I can manage with my 405 and PTGUI for the moment.

D.
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kers

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2018, 01:42:05 pm »

Bart,

Thanks again.

RRS not easily available this side of the pond. Purchase and servicing of Manfrotto much easier.

Will see if I can manage with my 405 and PTGUI for the moment.

D.

RRS is expensive, but the center sensor-marks on the L-bracket are very precise.
Manfrotto does not offer this quality but is alot cheaper.
I happen to have about the same system as Bart.
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Craig Magee

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #22 on: October 21, 2018, 05:28:20 pm »

Nodal Ninja is another panorama rig to look at. Well made, well priced.

I've tried the multi-row stitch method to shoot a few facades before and it works fairly well but find it can often look a little strange, kind of like superwide distortion but more that the image has been stretched. Depends how close you are to your subject. I've done it with a 50 and 135 and the 50 works better.

I would generally prefer the same  sort of method as Siobodan, shifting the ts-e along one of its diagonal axis, taking 4-5 (8-9) shots (four corners one center as an anchor) and then stitching. I do this a lot with the 24mm to get around a 27mm field of view. The 45 will probably give about a 28-30mm this way. If you rotate the lens off its horizontal shift axis by the first stop, 30degs, you'll get a slightly aspect similar to 16:10. There is also a much more natural look to the final image than the other method. 

You could possibly combine the two.

Lightroom will stich files into a dng and does a decent job. It's also pretty good at getting rid of chromatics in the DNG after it's been stitched, but I did find C1 better when you import this DNG. It might not totally clear them up though if there are some heavy ones.
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Dinarius

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #23 on: December 13, 2018, 04:24:34 pm »

Returning to this topic after a pause...

Was on a shoot this week - small building exteriors - and shot a few simple panos. (I also shot with a wide lens to cover myself.)

The pano were 3/4/5 shot setups either portrait or landscape.

In each case (only 4 in total) my CS6 produced a better result than PTGUI.

CS6 result was better in every respect; colour, contrast and perspective correction.

By comparison, PTGUI were flat, requiring a lot of editing. Also, in every case, vertical perspective correction was required. CS6 was pertin this respect.

I accept that I’m a total greenhorn with PTGUI. This is just an observation.

But, PTGUI is €200. That’s 20 months of CS sub, which I presume is an improvement on CS6?

I’m guessing that for complicated stuff PTGUI wins.

D.

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elliot_n

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #24 on: December 13, 2018, 07:21:32 pm »

What kinds of files where you feeding PTGui? It shouldn't be making changes to colour and contrast.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #25 on: December 13, 2018, 08:28:33 pm »

Returning to this topic after a pause...

Was on a shoot this week - small building exteriors - and shot a few simple panos. (I also shot with a wide lens to cover myself.)

The pano were 3/4/5 shot setups either portrait or landscape.

In each case (only 4 in total) my CS6 produced a better result than PTGUI.

CS6 result was better in every respect; colour, contrast and perspective correction.

By comparison, PTGUI were flat, requiring a lot of editing.

Hi D.,

Which I suspect, is due to not feeding PTGUI color correct TIFFs. I assume that the reason for my assumption is because PTGUI does no adjustment in those aspects, unless specifically directed to take a guess.

Quote
Also, in every case, vertical perspective correction was required. CS6 was pertin this respect.

I accept that I’m a total greenhorn with PTGUI. This is just an observation.

If your "vertical perspective" means keystone correction, then there are several ways to address that, some are quick, some more accurate (assuming that is what it should be, instead of pleasing).

Cheers,
Bart
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Dinarius

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #26 on: December 17, 2018, 12:00:17 pm »

Bart,

Thanks.

A few points.

1. When I input a TIFF into PTGUI (vs. CS6 or Microsoft's offering) it is rendered as if I had selected Linear Mode in CaptureOne. i.e. it appears flat (devoid of contrast or curve) and at least a stop below where it was. But, this could just me my naivety with the software.

2. Images inputted into PTGUI are coming out in need of more keystone correction than the same images from CS6. When this happens in CS6, it's usually easy to use Content Aware Fill to add extra sky (for example) before fixing the problem. Is there a way around this in PTGUI, or do you have to allow more headroom at the capture stage, by default? So far, I've saved the image from PTGUI and fixed it in CS6. Not ideal.

Thanks.

D.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #27 on: December 22, 2018, 07:47:53 pm »

Bart,

Thanks.

A few points.

1. When I input a TIFF into PTGUI (vs. CS6 or Microsoft's offering) it is rendered as if I had selected Linear Mode in CaptureOne. i.e. it appears flat (devoid of contrast or curve) and at least a stop below where it was. But, this could just me my naivety with the software.

Switch to Advanced settings if you haven't already, then check the settings on the Exposure / HDR settings Tab (and if needed, Reset Automatic Exposure and Color adjustment). Also make sure you haven't checked the "Apply Tonemapping" box in the Panorama Editor (CTRL+E).

Quote
2. Images inputted into PTGUI are coming out in need of more keystone correction than the same images from CS6. When this happens in CS6, it's usually easy to use Content Aware Fill to add extra sky (for example) before fixing the problem. Is there a way around this in PTGUI, or do you have to allow more headroom at the capture stage, by default? So far, I've saved the image from PTGUI and fixed it in CS6. Not ideal.

Not sure if you mean that Keystoning is under-corrected or that the projection is different. If the former, there are several possibilities to either automatically or manually adjust that. If the latter, you can try a different projection in the Panorama Editor (CTRL+E). It may be useful to shoot an additional partial image (row) at the Top/Bottom Center region, and use your Photo Editor to Heal or InPaint the missing parts of an image. A Cylindrical Projection, if shot level, will have equal vertical coverage for each image tile in the Panorama but all horizontal lines (except the Horizon) will be curved (which can be fine for Nature shots, but not Architecture).

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: December 22, 2018, 07:52:30 pm by BartvanderWolf »
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BobShaw

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #28 on: December 25, 2018, 04:08:58 pm »

I use my Canon 45mm Tilt-Shift a lot.
What is the best way to get a wide building flat and upright, without hiring a 24mm T/S! :)
None. Get the 24TSE. It is a fabulous lens and I now use it as my main landscape lens on the X1D which makes it even wider.
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Dinarius

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #29 on: May 28, 2019, 08:41:43 am »

Rather than start a new topic, I figured it would be useful to keep everything here.

I shot a pano from a ship of a flat calm sea.

The pano (five frames) is pretty good and most people would have to have the few visible seams between files pointed out to them.

How can I best clean up these few flaws?

I presume that given the nature of the sea, there is no avoiding this problem in future?

Thanks.

D.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #30 on: May 28, 2019, 08:56:08 am »

Rather than start a new topic, I figured it would be useful to keep everything here.

I shot a pano from a ship of a flat calm sea.

The pano (five frames) is pretty good and most people would have to have the few visible seams between files pointed out to them.

How can I best clean up these few flaws?

I presume that given the nature of the sea, there is no avoiding this problem in future?

Hi,

Depending on the nature of the flaws (foreground/background, occlusions, movement, etc.), ultimately a warp or clone/heal tool on the separate layers may be needed.

Cheers,
Bart
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LesPalenik

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #31 on: May 28, 2019, 03:40:30 pm »


1. When I input a TIFF into PTGUI (vs. CS6 or Microsoft's offering) it is rendered as if I had selected Linear Mode in CaptureOne. i.e. it appears flat (devoid of contrast or curve) and at least a stop below where it was. But, this could just me my naivety with the software.

Could it be that the TIFFs are saved in Prophoto profile, rather than in RGB?
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Dinarius

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #32 on: May 29, 2019, 04:18:19 am »

Hi,

Depending on the nature of the flaws (foreground/background, occlusions, movement, etc.), ultimately a warp or clone/heal tool on the separate layers may be needed.

Cheers,
Bart

Bart,

Thanks.

What is visible is the lines between some of the files in the foreground area. Obviously, the constantly changing nature, even of a flat calm sea, caused this. (The background sea and the entire overcast sky are perfect.)

The easiest way of dealing with these would be the likes of the Clone Tool in Photoshop.

The reason I ask the question is that I'm wondering if I can tweak certain settings in PTGUI to make it render a better result.

D.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #33 on: May 29, 2019, 10:41:45 am »

The reason I ask the question is that I'm wondering if I can tweak certain settings in PTGUI to make it render a better result.

Hi,

You could try, with the same overall settings, to do an additional stitch that you can blend in as a layer in Photoshop or a similar editor.

This additional stitch can be made with a different "feather" setting on the last "Create Panorama" tab, or use a dedicated stitch based on foreground controlpoints, and another based on background controlpoints. By forcing PTGUI to use only controlpoints in a plane at a given foreground distance from the camera, a stitch can always be made, but then the parallax will be in the background. Then combine the good parts from the two versions in postprocessing.

If you use the PTGUI Pro version, you also have the ability to use masking during the stitching process, so you can include/exclude features from one tile in the overlap zone.

Cheers,
Bart
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Dinarius

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Re: Shooting wide architectural facades - stitch or shift?
« Reply #34 on: May 30, 2019, 02:58:13 am »

Cheers Bart,

That's Dutch to me.

But, I'll try and work on it when I have more time.

Meanwhile, if you have a link to a video of what you describe, that would be great.

Thanks!

Denis
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